Kenneth Copeland - Strengthen Your Inner Man
Hello, everybody. This is The Believer's Voice of Victory broadcast and I'm Kenneth Copeland.
Father, we thank you for this day. We thank you for this broadcast. We're blessed and it's all because of you, Jesus. We thank you and we open our hearts again today and we open our minds for revelation from Heaven. We thank you for insights, ideas, and concepts of the kingdom of God in Jesus' name. Amen.
Remember that, insights, ideas, and concepts. I see. Insights, ideas, and concepts. That's the way the Spirit of God works, gives you insight, He gives you ideas, and concepts of His way of doing things. Amen. Let's open our Bibles again to Mark 11 once more. We'll go back to this and refer to this. Verse 22, "Jesus answering saith unto them, 'Have faith in God.'" Now, we're talking about the developing, the training, the educating of the born again human spirit, the most important part of you, because it is you. Well, let's finish reading this. "Have faith in God". Well, where is faith? Is it in the mind? No, it's not a mental force. It's a spiritual force.
Remember 1 Corinthians 13? "Now abides faith, hope, and love, these three". Those are spiritual forces. We start off talking about meditating in the word. This is something that comes from meditating the word. Hope is a spiritual force. It's not a mental force. People use it as a mental force. Well, are you gonna be healed tonight? Brother Copeland, I sure hope so. Now, you ain't hoping, you're wishing. Real Bible hope says, "Well, absolutely. Are you kidding me? My hope is of glory to God. Healing belongs to me. Are you kidding me? Of course I'll be healed". That's real Bible hope. See, I'm telling you, you've gotta spend some time in that because the whole world is using the Word hope. Everybody's using the Word hope. They don't have a clue what hope is. Amen.
Now, "Have faith in God, for verily I say unto you that whosoever shall say unto this mountain, 'Be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea,' and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe where in his heart that those words which he saith shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he saith". We can see just from this right here that it is vitally important that the spirit man grow up. We talked about that last week, that the spirit man grow up and be an adult and not just a baby tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, but grow up into Him. Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and give you all five of these if you can just jot them all down, but you can see how they fold together. Meditation in the word, that's the first one. That's where you start. Then being a doer of the word.
Now, think about this. All of these take decisions. I have to decide to meditate in the Word and then do it. Doing it once or twice won't do anything. Hey, this is life work. This is a way of life, hallelujah. You make time for these things. Being a doer of the word, acting on it the way you would act on the Word of a lawyer, a doctor, a very highly trusted friend or family member. I know my dad, AW Copeland, man, there wasn't any doubt in my heart or my mind. If my dad he's going to do this, write it down, brother, 'cause it's gonna happen. He's a man of his word. I wasn't. I was like that little boy. The teacher asked him in Sunday school, "What is a lie"? He said, "It's an abomination to God and an ever-present help in a time of need".
Well, that might be a seducing spirit. Actually, that's exactly what it is. Anyway, well, I learned from my dad. Anyway, there's another little boy in Sunday school and she was teaching and she said, "And Lot's wife looked back and turned into a pillar of salt". This little boy said, "Huh. That ain't nothing. My mama looked back and turned into a telephone pole". If I remember right, I got both of those from Charles Capps. I kinda think I did. He's in Heaven today, praise God, and I miss him, too. Hallelujah. Then put the Word first place so that God's word...
See, if we don't realize that God can't lie, it isn't that He won't, He can't. Think about it. This came from meditating on that one day. Man, I was just meditating. What do you mean He can't lie? It's just as clear and plain that if the Lord just appeared suddenly and said, "Isn't this a wonderful Saturday"? and everybody said, "Uh, no, Lord. This is Wednesday". Not anymore, it isn't. All the calendars would change. The planets would- He can't lie. This book is a copy of the truth. Hallelujah. It can be trusted. Now, also, the Scripture tells you very clearly in 1 John we've known the love. The Greek was Ginosko, which means "intimate relationship with". You knew that when you got born again. But we've known and believed the love that God has for us.
Now, most Christian people don't believe that. "Oh, Brother Copeland"! Don't start that. "I believe He loves me". Really? Then you got sick and all upset. "I just don't see how you can let this happen to me! Don't you care"? Huh? Amen. Natural, physical love. That's bankrupt. But the natural, thinking, carnal mind still has love in that category. In the beginning, love created the heavens and the Earth. Hallelujah. God is love. You meditate that and believe His love. When He's telling you this is something you need to be doing, love is telling you that, not somebody that's down on you. He's never down on you.
"Well, Brother Copeland, I know He gets mad at me". You're a liar. Alright. Just turn your lying self over there to the book of Isaiah. Oh, if more people. Oh, my, my, my, my. Isaiah 54. Now, you remember Isaiah 53. "Surely He hath borne our pain, our sicknesses, and carried our pains". The King James says, "Griefs and sorrows". Well, He bore our griefs and carried our sorrows, so that's not an untruth. But a more accurate translation is, "He bore our sicknesses and carried our pains". Alright, that's Jesus on the cross. Isaiah 54 is God talking to the church. Glory to God. Oh sing the baron who did not bare. And hey, Calvary has happened and here we are. Jesus has borne the wrath of God. Amen.
Look at this. Verse eight, or verse seven. "For a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with great mercy will I gather thee". What was that small moment? Three days and three nights. "In a little wrath I hid my face for the for a moment". That was when Jesus was hanging on that cross in the 53rd chapter. Listen, now. "But with everlasting kindness". That is the Hebrew word hesed, which is covenant kindness. I choose. I will. The word agape means, "I will love". It's an act of the will, not the feelings. Oh, get it. Stay with me. "I will have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer".
Let me ask you something. I'm asking all of you out there in the television audience. Is there going to be another all-devastating flood on this Earth? Now, everybody in here knew the answer to that. Didn't hesitate. "Well, I don't know, Brother Copeland". Yeah, you do. It ain't gonna happen. "This is as the waters of Noah unto me, as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the Earth". Woo! "So have I sworn I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee". Lord, glory to God. Now, He'll correct you. Some will be like, "Well, you know, He'll beat you up". No, no, no, no. Jesus took the beating. He took the whipping. Went to hell and paid the price. The war's over. Hallelujah. God is forever satisfied. Thank you, Lord Jesus. He is not mad at you. Disappointed, maybe, but He's still smiling. He said this to me one time.
Now, I may have mentioned this last week. I don't know if I did but I should have. He said to me one day, "Kenneth," so clear. Like I said, I've never heard the audible voice of God. This is one of the things we're gonna talk about before we get through this week, is training to hear the voice of your spirit and the voice of the Lord. That's the reason the spirit man needs to grow up. He said so plainly, "Kenneth, I love you, son". I said, "Glory to God". He said, "I don't like you very much". Huh. Woah. "Why"? He said, "You're too high-tempered. I told you and commanded you to walk in love. I need you to do something about that".
Well, what do you do? Something about it, that's what you do. Amen. Hallelujah. Isn't that a wonderful... Hey, look at that. That is so wonderful. You go ahead and finish that whole chapter, praise God. Those of you that are partners know that Isaiah 54 is right on the bottom of the letter 'cause this is part of the prayer regimen for my partners. "Great shall be the peace of your children, and no weapon formed against you shall prosper, and every tongue that rises against you in judgment you shall condemn". Hallelujah. Lord, I preached myself happy. Thank you, Lord. Okay, wherever we were, let's go back over there to it. Hallelujah.
Now, well, I'll tell you what. Excuse me. Then we talked about being a doer of the word, acting on the word. Let's look at this in Proverbs 4. We talked about a little bit last week, but I wanna take another good look at this. Verse 20. This is just like having a prescription on the side of a bottle of medicine. This is the prescription for receiving from God. "My son, attend to my words". Put it first. "Incline thine ear unto my saying". I'm inclined to hear this. "Well, now, Brother Copeland, I don't know. You know, I know the Bible says that," but see, you're not inclined to hear it. When you make that decision, this Word is first place in my life, then I'm inclined to hear this.
There's a lot of times you think you got a real problem, but then when you find out what the Bible says about it, you think, "You know, that's no problem at all. That's not the problem I thought it was". I've had that happened a lot of times. I had the Lord say to me, we were at a point in the ministry one time where we were $1 million behind. Man, I'd prayed about it for several days and I said, "Lord, I need $1 million". He said, "No, you don't". I said out loud, "Well, you could have fooled me".
See, I'm surface looking here. He said, "No. You have a spiritual problem in the ministry, something I told you and you saw it, but then you just kinda passed it off. You didn't follow through with it. If I were to give you $1 million today, that spiritual problem inside the ministry would eat that up, and it wouldn't be long you'd be back behind again because you haven't removed the problem". It's like taking an aspirin or a painkiller. You haven't removed the problem, you just put the pain down where you're not feeling it. "Incline your ear to my sayings. Let them, my sayings, not depart from your eyes". This means you're gonna have to put your eyes on the word. It's not good enough just to memorize it. How many of you had breakfast this morning? I did, too. I remember exactly what I had. I remember exactly how it tasted. I cannot get nourishment in my body by remembering what I had for breakfast.
Now, memorizing Scripture, that's excellent. I never have set out to memorize Scripture, but you become a doer of the Word and you'll be surprised. It'll just come out of your spirit. It just comes out, brother, praise God. But the Lord kept getting on me and getting on me. He said, "Do what that says there. You take time to put these things in your eyes. It's good in your eyes. See yourself with it". "Incline thine ear to my sayings. Let them not depart from your eyes. Keep them in the midst of your heart". That means, well, you go down here to the next one, "Keep your heart".
One translation said, "Protect your heart with all diligence, for out of it flow the forces of life". Well, isn't that what we're talking about? Isn't it this inner man that we're talking about strengthening? Praise God. You get strong enough the devil can't steal that Word out of you like Jesus talked about in Mark 4. "Satan cometh immediately to steal it". Well, don't let him have it. Amen. "They are life". The cross reference says medicine. Medicine is a better translation of that word. "They are life to those that find them and health," that's where it says medicine. The Word of God is medicine to your flesh.
I like what Gloria, she said, "Take your medicine. Take it three times a day". Glory to God. If the condition gets worse, double the dose. Amen. Thank you, Lord. Put that Word first place. Now, then, thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord Jesus. 1 Peter 3. Meditating the word, be a doer of the word, put the Word first, obey the voice of your spirit, then the fifth one is do what God says do. Do it exactly as He said and do it now. Now, we won't get into that today. We're just about out of time today. In fact, we are. Hallelujah. I'm gonna get on you one of these days, Tim Fox. You're messing up my message. Did you get anything out of this today?